Archive for the ‘2012 Politics’ Category
Trump’s Twitter rant after Obama win: ‘We should march on Washington and stop this’
Donald Trump, the impossibly coiffed real estate mogul and de facto leader of the “birther” movement, had something of a Twitter meltdown in the wake of President Barack Obama’s projected victory in Tuesday’s election.
“Well, back to the drawing board!” Trump tweeted shortly after several networks, including Fox News, called Ohio in the president’s favor, sealing the win. “We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!”
Trump—who last month offered $5 million to a charity of Obama’s choice in exchange for the release of the commander in chief’s college records and passport application—continued his post-election rant in 140-character chunks:
Let’s fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us.
This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!
Our nation is a once great nation divided!
Our country is now in serious and unprecedented trouble…like never before.
“Barack Obama is the least transparent president in the history of this country,” Trump said in a widely mocked October video shot from his New York office and uploaded to YouTube. “I’m very honored to have gotten him to release his long-form birth certificate or whatever it may be.”
Claims increase of machines switching votes in Ohio, other battlegrounds for Obama
By Eric Shawn Published November 02, 2012 FoxNews.com
Imagine going to vote for your presidential candidate and pushing the button on a touch-screen voting machine — but the “X” marks his opponent instead.
That is what some voters in Nevada, North Carolina, Texas and Ohio have reported.
Fox News has received several complaints from voters who say they voted on touch-screen voting machines — only when they tried to select Mitt Romney, the machine indicated they had chosen President Obama. The voters in question realized the error and were able to cast ballots for their actual choice.”I don’t know if it happened to anybody else or not, but this is the first time in all the years that we voted that this has ever happened to me,” said Marion, Ohio, voter Joan Stevens.
Stevens said that when she voted, it took her three tries before the machine accepted her choice to vote for Romney.
“I went to vote and I got right in the middle of Romney’s name,” Stevens told Fox News, saying that she was certain to put her finger directly on her choice for the White House.
She said that the first time she pushed “Romney,” the machine marked “Obama.”
So she pushed Romney again. Obama came up again. Then it happened a third time.
“Maybe you make a mistake once, but not three times,” she told Fox News.
Marion County Board of Elections Director Sophie Rogers, though, said: “My personal opinion is that she hit it too hard.”
“We’ve noticed people just punch on them. She might not have hit the square that she wanted,” Rogers said.
Rogers insists there are no problems with the touch-screen machines in Marion County and that after learning of Stevens’ complaint she took the machine out of circulation and had it reexamined and recalibrated. She says there was nothing wrong with the machine to begin with.
But in response to the growing number of complaints, the Republican National Committee has sent a letter to election officials in six states — Ohio, Nevada, Kansas, North Carolina, Missouri and Colorado — demanding tighter controls on touch-screen machines.
The RNC wants the machines to be re-tested, more technicians added to fix any problems, and verbal reminders given by election workers telling voters to double check their ballots.
Multiple voters from several states wrote Fox News to report problems similar to what Stevens reported.
One voter asked: “I wonder how many voters just hit the ‘Cast Ballot’ without reading the machine?”
“How can we be sure our votes are not being stolen electronically?” asked another.
One expert warns it can happen.
“Vote jumping complaints have arisen in every election that uses touch-screen voting machines, with the complaints going both ways,” said Barbara Simons, author of the new book “Broken Ballots: Will Your Vote Count?”
Simons, an expert on electronic voting who is on the Board of Advisors of the U.S. Election Commission, said there is good reason for people not to trust the older touch-screen machines.
She said, “This phenomenon can occur when a machine goes out of calibration. The need to re-calibrate frequently is an important reason for discarding these aging, unreliable, and inaccurate machines and replacing them with paper ballots.”
Frequently recalibrating the machines is one of the RNC demands.
But election officials insist that the machines are practically foolproof. They say any problems are due to human error, and that tinkering with machines is almost impossible.
“It is nearly technically impossible to pre-program the voting machines in Nevada to vote for a specified candidate,” said Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, in a statement to Fox News.
He said machines are tested by each of the state’s 17 counties individually.
“While it is possible for a voter to inadvertently select a candidate, it is not possible for the machine to automatically select a candidate.”
Miller notes that similar allegations were investigated in his state during the 2010 election, with the assistance of the FBI. Authorities found that claims that machines “were pre-programmed, malfunctioning or in any way preventing any voter from casting a ballot for the candidate of their choice were without merit.”
Miller, a Democrat, brands the Republican demand to election officials as “based upon rumor, hearsay, or unconfirmed media reports,” as well as “irresponsible” and “unfortunate.”
He said his office has “not received any direct, first-hand complaints from voters.”
In Ohio, touch-screen machines, for example, are being used in Lorain County with no reported “switched votes” or operational issues.
“We haven’t had any problems with the touch screens this year and everything is going well,” Lorain County Board of Elections Director Paul Adams told Fox News.
His county has used touch-screen machines since 2005.
Adams, a veteran election official, said that in his county, machines are not electronically designed to be able to change choices, and there is no way for anybody to rig a machine or pre-program its choices for one candidate or a slate.
“We have heard of these issues in some of the other counties. We had sporadic issues a few years ago, and since then we have upgraded our software and our board has replaced most of our touch-screen unit screens if there were any problems with them. And since we’ve done that about a year and a half ago, we haven’t had any major issues.”
Lorain County did replace 400 of its 1,200 touch screen machines last year.
Adams also notes that there is what is called “a paper trial,” like a receipt, where voters can see their choices printed out. He also says that anybody who has a problem voting should immediately tell elections officials.
While Fox News spent the day at the County Board of Elections, where early voting was taking place, election workers were doing just that.
One woman’s long fingernails blocked her selection, until she moved the angle of her fingers to get it right.
An elderly man did not realize that he did not cast a vote for president, so a worker did exactly what Adam advises. She walked the voter through the process.
“I pushed the button!” the man declared.
“You might have accidently hit it twice. Just lightly tap it, real light,” advised the worker.
She also showed the voter the paper evidence of his votes to confirm them.
“Are you satisfied?”
“Yes, thank you very much,” the voter replied.
Nevertheless, Joan, who said she finally was able to cast a correct vote after three attempts, advises fellow voters to confirm their choices.
“Be very careful when you vote. I don’t care who you vote for, just double-check.”
If you suspect problems and the polls or voter fraud where you live, tell us: Voterfraud@Foxnews.com
Fox News’ Meredith Orban contributed to this report.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/02/claims-increasing-switched-votes-in-ohio/#ixzz2B6P0zNEy
Related articles
- Claims increase of machines switching votes in Ohio, other battlegrounds (foxnews.com)
- GOP wants Ohio voting machines fixed (wnd.com)
- More ballots for Romney come up Obama (wnd.com)
- Complaints crop up in Ohio of early voting machines marking Romney votes for Obama (conservativeread.com)
- Ohio Voting Machines Only Allow Vote for Obama (godfatherpolitics.com)
- Farewell lever and punch-card machines (newsvine.com)
- Whoa: Voting machines in Ohio, NC, Nev. switching Romney votes to votes for Obama (twitchy.com)
- More Electronic Voting Machines Changing Romney Votes to Obama: We Looked Into It and Here’s What a Vendor Told Us (askmarion.wordpress.com)
- More Voting Problems: Ohio Voting Machines Are Giving Romney Votes to Obama (thegatewaypundit.com)
- GOP cites voting-machine errors (denverpost.com)
Indiana: Obama Removed From Ballot? Birthers Final Chance On Monday 10/22/2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
Indiana: Obama Removed From Ballot? Birthers Final Chance Today
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| Orly Taitz meets with Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana |
Today, Dr. Orly Taitz, ESQ is in court to challenge the Secretary of State of Indiana‘s right to dismiss her previous ballot challenge against President Barack Obama’s place on the 2012 ballot.
She is reportedly bringing 7 witnesses, although her most relevant witnesses (Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Mike Zullo and “Senior Deportation Officer” John Sampson), have refused to appear, claiming that Orly Taitz is a “Circus Show”. Taitz subpoena’d them and even filed a Motion to Compel Sheriff Joe in Arizona court to appear at the Indiana hearing today.
You have to wonder what their actual motivations are if they can submit sworn affidavits to courts but refuse to back them up with actual in-person witness testimony. Could it be that they do not actually believe the affidavits they signed and thusly cannot risk perjuring themselves on the witness stand? Time will tell.
EYEWITNESS REPORTS:
7:42pm EST: Part 3 of A Legal Lohengrin’s 3 part Exclusive and detailed Report on today’s proceedings.
Part 2 Here
6:35pm EST: Pamela Barnett’s eyewitness account: Judge Reid has not made a ruling.
Orly did a great job when I saw her before I was sequestered out of the room. I didn’t get to see the other witnesses. but everyone said the IN attorney general attorney was acting for Obama watching the evidence being testified to… challenging everything.
He and the judge both seemed to be intentionally trying to drag out the time so Orly wouldn’t have enough time to get to all of the witness testimony.
The judge heard a motion to stop the trial even though she shouldn’t have because it was only filed the day before and Orly has 15 days to file a reply brief. This took over an hour of the court time which cut into the witness time. The tyrannical state attorney kept repeating his arguments over and over to waste time.
Paul Irey and Chitto Papa testified to the forged birth certificate and instead of being concerned about protecting the state of Indiana from vote fraud, he went on the attack for Obama.
Strunk got to testify to the fact Obama has the alias Soebarkah and that was it. Before witnesses could start testifying finally, Orly had kept reminding the Judge that she had paid thousands of dollars to bring all of the witnesses there to try to speed up the proceedings. But in the end the judge abruptly cut the trial off even though she was hearing testimony regarding an issue of national security and Bob Kern and I did not get to testify. She didn’t even let my documents be put on the record.
Orly remained positive. She was very happy with Irey’s and Papa’s testimony. She feels that any honest person that saw the testimony would “know obama’s “Hawaii birth certificate” posted at whitehouse.gov is a forgery.
Sorry that I was not able to testify. I had prepared many, many hours. The fight goes one.
6:19pm EST: Part 2 of A Legal Lohengrin’s 3 part Exclusive and detailed Report on today’s proceedings.
5:40pm EST: Orly Taitz Press Release: Today a trial was conducted in Indianapolis Indiana on the issue of Daclaratory relief and injunctive relief due to Obama’s use of forged Birth Certificate, Selective Service Certificate and a fraudulently obtained Connecticut Social Security number 042-68-4425. Presiding Judge is a superior court Judge Sherry K. Reid. For the Plaintiffs appeared attorneys Orly Taitz and local Indiana counsel Greg Black. For the defense appeared Deputy Attorney General Kenneth Joel and Deputy attorney general Jefferson Garn. Over an extremely rigorous objection by the defense, Judge Reid admitted into evidence exhibits and testimony of witnesses Paul Irey and Felicito Papa. Mr. Papa testified that he graduated from the Indiana Institute of Technology had some 20 years of experience with Adobe Illustrator program. He testified that Obama”s birth certificate opened in Adobe illustrator in 9 layers, which means that this is a document, which underwent computer manipulation. Mr. Papa testified that it cannot be a genuine document, as in 1961 there was no Adobe Illustrator. Birth certificates in 1961 were created not on the computer, but with a typewriter. He stated his opinion that this is a forgery. His exhibits, showing layers within the document, were admitted into evidence.
Mr. Paul Irey testified that he has 57 years of experience working for NSA and later advertising, typesetting and computer graphics programs.
Mr. Irey testified that Obama’s alleged birth certificate is a computer generated forgery.
Mr. Irey had a large board with exhibits, where he showed enlargements of all the letters in Obama’s birth certificate. He vividly demonstrated that letters came from different typesetting, which in itself is a proof of forgery.
Additionally Mr. Irey testified that when a document is printed with a typewriter, the spaces between the letters are the same, however in Obama’s birth certificate the spacing varies, which is a sign of forgery.
Mr. Irey also testified that there is a white halo around letters in Obama’s birth certificate, which can exist oly as a result of computer manipulation. Mr. Irey testified that Obama’s birth certificate is a computer generated forgery.
Decision by the court is expected within a week.
More information on this and other cases will be posted on Orly TaitzESQ.com
5:19pm EST: A Legal Lohengrin provides a lengthy and detailed 3 part report: Click here for Part 1 and check back later for Parts 2 and 3
3:22pm EST: Tonight at 7:30pm EST there will be a radio show discussing Orly Taitz’ big hearing today in Indiana: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rcr/2012/10/22/rc-radio–indiana-hearing-special-time-730-pm-edt
2:02pm EST: REPORT: 1:10 PM Hearing Over.
Last witness Irey. [...]
Judge ended hearing in middle of defense cross examination.
Orders from all parties due by close of business Thursday.
2:00pm EST: 0 minute recess. New motion to vacate and dismiss jurisdiction
Under advisement
Strunk and papa allowed to testify
Joel as first chair objecting to absolutely everything and usually Sustained
Papa not expert. May be over soon
1:48pm EST: Orly Taitz Statement: This is Huge! Over objections by the defense we were able to admit into evidence all of the exhibits and testimony showing forgery in Obama’s birth certificate. Proposed order will be submitted by TH, decision by Judge Reid will be coming in the near future!
1:22pm EST: <EYEWITNESS REPORT ROLLING IN SHORTLY.>
12:42pm EST: HEARING STILL BEING ADJUDICATED< WILL UPDATE AS SOON AS IT IS EITHER COMPLETED OR RECESSED>
Related articles
- Evidence Of Forgery In Obama Birth Certificate Admitted At Trial (amresolution.com)
- IN – Orly v Election Commission – Pamela Barnett reports (nativeborncitizen.wordpress.com)
- Joe Arpaio’s “Birther” Chief Mike Zullo Strikes Back at Orly Taitz, Says He Doesn’t Want “Circus Show” Involved (nativeborncitizen.wordpress.com)
- MS – Orly v Democrat Party – Shocking revelations… (nativeborncitizen.wordpress.com)
- Obama Objector Gets Kansas Court Hearing (wibw.com)
- Obama Cracks Birth Certificate Joke While Attacking Mitt Romney At Campaign Rally (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
- ‘Birther’ Orly Taitz on hand as Kansas ends Obama ballot question (kansascity.com)
- Indiana Judge Hears Obama Forgery Evidence – What Happened (amresolution.com)
- Tea Party ‘BirtherFest’ a Bust (newser.com)
- MISSISSIPPI: Orly Taitz Tries Again (joemygod.blogspot.com)
Obama Alias Used For Cover At Chicago Gay Bath House?
By AL HENDERSHOT – The Obama Hustle 10/30/2012
I am going to start this article by describing the context for which it, the article will be written. There is a subculture with in the African-American community that is seldom discussed and that is the activities of Black men who engage in homosexual activities while still in heterosexual relationships, ie.. living in the down low.
Down-low is an African American slang term[ that refers to a subculture of men who usually identify themselves as heterosexual, but who have sex with men; some avoid sharing this information even if they have female sexual partner(s). The term is also used to refer to a related sexual identity. (Source Wikipedia)
Firstly, I want to make clear that this article is in no way making any disparaging comments towards the LGBT community. This article is simply going to discuss the closeted activities of a man who is probably denying who he really is for political purposes.
The rumors about Obama's predilection for one-sided homosexual contact or even full sexual contact has been discussed for many years ever since his connection to several known Gay individuals and even others who might also be on the down low themselves such as Reverend Jeremiah Wright and current Chicago Mayor, Rahm Emanuel.
Some so-called straight people love to have their homosexual fantasies explored in many ways and places. Now obviously most MGM's (Married Gay Men) cannot host his/their sexual encounters so he has to find alternatives. One of Obama's alternatives for his Gay sexual encounters has been known to be a Bath House known as "Man's Country".
Now as Bath Houses go Man's Country appears to be the Trolliest (new word I invented). Mostly older men frequent this establishment which is as past reported seems to be the kind of men Obama likes to play with. It has been noted that Obama enjoys/has enjoyed having oral sex with older men where he is the recipient of the oral copulation. Now whether he, Obama and Emanuel have ever played together that's a different story all together, but that would be interesting. Who would be more dominant, Obama or Emauel.
So we can have a better understating of what the bath house that Obama and Emanuel used to hang out at was/is like here is a review from one of its members, "John B".
3/16/2008
"Oh lord, am I really writing a review of Man's Country. Have I really fallen so far?
In a word: yes.
To start, Man's Country is a gay bathhouse. Men go there to have sex. End of story. There's no Better Midler to-be entertaining men in towels. Oh, there are strip shows on weekends, but those are merely entertainments that precede or follow men having sex. Or sometimes happen simultaneously.
I live around the corner from Man's Country, but have not been there since I've lived here. Which doesn't mean I've never been there. I was never a regular, but I have my (lifetime) membership. But I hadn't been there for eons. Until recently.
A few months ago, after a long night of drinking, I found myself outside Man's Country. I had just bundled my friend into a taxi after closing The Eagle, which is next door. And I wasn't done making poor decisions for the night.
You enter Man's Country through an airlock designed to separate the tawdriness within from the naive world without. Or vice versa. Behind the (bulletproof?) glass are orange jumpsuited attendants who check you in. Is the similarity to prison coincidental? You be the judge. Man's Country is a private club, which I guess provides protection from a slew of indecency laws, so you need to be a member to enter. Membership is 10 bucks, and has been since I first "joined" about 20 years ago. Membership lasts a lifetime, which, if you visit regularly, may be perilously brief. The entrance fee varies, depending on whether you're renting a locker, a small room, a large room, or a "fantasy" room. This ain't The Sybaris -- "fantasy" relates to a variety of S&M accoutrements. You receive a key (to your room or locker) on an elastic strap, a well-worn towel, and if you have rented a room, shreds of cotton that pass for a sheet and pillowcase. Are you in the mood yet? You are also offered the opportunity to check your valuables. Check your valuables. I am not saying that "Man's Country" is a synonym for "Den of Thieves." But check your valuables.
Then you go to your room or locker, strip down, stow your stuff, wrap the towel around your waist and elastic band around your wrist, and you're off to the races.
There are three levels to Man's Country. That's right -- this is a superstore. The main level has the locker room, some private rooms, and a video room. Upstairs is a maze of more private rooms, another small video room, and the large showroom, where the strippers live. When there is not a show, the TV screens show porn (as they do in the video rooms, of course), and men have sex. On the floor, on the stage, on the seating area. The private rooms are fitted with lights on dimmers, so the occupant can show you as much or little as they like. Don't expect the lights to be up -- these guys aren't beauty queens. The men are generally lying on their backs or stomachs, depending on what they expect you to do to them. You do the math.
What struck me on my recent visit was the number of guys wandering around mostly or fully dressed. This says one of two things to me: 1) hustler, or 2) thief. Because after I steal your stuff, I don't want to take time to get dressed before I book. The other thing was what a horrible state of disrepair everything was in. There's nothing wrong with Man's Country that a good fire couldn't solve. Short of that, they need to hose the place down from top to bottom, soak it in bleach, and maybe bring in an exorcist or two. Man's Country is open 364 days a year, and it shows.
The lower level is the "wet" area, featuring a steam room and tub. I expect there are bacteria in the tub big enough to knock you down and take your wallet. As for the steam room... Old men + dirty men + sexual activity + steam = ? You fill in the blank.
My last time at Man's Country was probably my last time at Man's Country. There's nothing there for me, unless you count gonorrhea."
This tells me that Obama and Emanuel like seedy joints out of the way so they can have their play-time in secret and go home to the wife and kids.
Now this leads to the Obama alias of Harrison J Bounel which was linked to Obama as of 2009. What better alias than one that is hard to trace and that can be used for what ever needs available. Especially having to have a fake name for fun times at Man’s Country.
Could the Obama alias be the one that he was using to hide his membership to Man’s Country? Interesting thought.
Related articles
- Report: Obama Was Member Of Gay Bath House”Mans Country”In Chicago? (nalert.blogspot.com)
- Hillary Clinton Kept Silent About ‘Bathhouse Barry’ & Jeremiah Wright’s ‘Gay Cover’ At Trinity Church ~ Where 3 Gays Were Murdered ‘Coup De Gras’ Within 6 weeks! (politicalvelcraft.org)
- Claim: Obama hid ‘gay life’ to become president (wnd.com)
- Is Obama Gay? Top Ten Wacky Conspiracy Theories on World Net Daily (addictinginfo.org)
- Claim: Obama hid ‘gay life’ to become president (theobamahustle.wordpress.com)
- Has the Kenyan Really “Come Out Of The Closet” ? (thesquirrelsnestblog.wordpress.com)
AP poll: Majority harbor prejudice against blacks after Obama was elected President
By JENNIFER AGIESTA and SONYA ROSS | Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Racial attitudes have not improved in the four years since the United States elected its first black president, an Associated Press poll finds, as a slight majority of Americans now express prejudice toward blacks whether they recognize those feelings or not.
Those views could cost President Barack Obama votes as he tries for re-election, the survey found, though the effects are mitigated by some Americans’ more favorable views of blacks.
Racial prejudice has increased slightly since 2008 whether those feelings were measured using questions that explicitly asked respondents about racist attitudes, or through an experimental test that measured implicit views toward race without asking questions about that topic directly.
In all, 51 percent of Americans now express explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in a similar 2008 survey. When measured by an implicit racial attitudes test, the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments jumped to 56 percent, up from 49 percent during the last presidential election. In both tests, the share of Americans expressing pro-black attitudes fell.
“As much as we’d hope the impact of race would decline over time … it appears the impact of anti-black sentiment on voting is about the same as it was four years ago,” said Jon Krosnick, a Stanford University professor who worked with AP to develop the survey.
Most Americans expressed anti-Hispanic sentiments, too. In an AP survey done in 2011, 52 percent of non-Hispanic whites expressed anti-Hispanic attitudes. That figure rose to 57 percent in the implicit test. The survey on Hispanics had no past data for comparison.
The AP surveys were conducted with researchers from Stanford University, the University of Michigan and NORC at the University of Chicago.
Experts on race said they were not surprised by the findings.
“We have this false idea that there is uniformity in progress and that things change in one big step. That is not the way history has worked,” said Jelani Cobb, professor of history and director of the Institute for African-American Studies at the University of Connecticut. “When we’ve seen progress, we’ve also seen backlash.”
Obama himself has tread cautiously on the subject of race, but many African-Americans have talked openly about perceived antagonism toward them since Obama took office. As evidence, they point to events involving police brutality or cite bumper stickers, cartoons and protest posters that mock the president as a lion or a monkey, or lynch him in effigy.
“Part of it is growing polarization within American society,” said Fredrick Harris, director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. “The last Democrat in the White House said we had to have a national discussion about race. There’s been total silence around issues of race with this president. But, as you see, whether there is silence, or an elevation of the discussion of race, you still have polarization. It will take more generations, I suspect, before we eliminate these deep feelings.”
Overall, the survey found that by virtue of racial prejudice, Obama could lose 5 percentage points off his share of the popular vote in his Nov. 6 contest against Republican challenger Mitt Romney. However, Obama also stands to benefit from a 3 percentage point gain due to pro-black sentiment, researchers said. Overall, that means an estimated net loss of 2 percentage points due to anti-black attitudes.
The poll finds that racial prejudice is not limited to one group of partisans. Although Republicans were more likely than Democrats to express racial prejudice in the questions measuring explicit racism (79 percent among Republicans compared with 32 percent among Democrats), the implicit test found little difference between the two parties. That test showed a majority of both Democrats and Republicans held anti-black feelings (55 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans), as did about half of political independents (49 percent).
Obama faced a similar situation in 2008, the survey then found.
The Associated Press developed the surveys to measure sensitive racial views in several ways and repeated those studies several times between 2008 and 2012.
The explicit racism measures asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements about black and Hispanic people. In addition, the surveys asked how well respondents thought certain words, such as “friendly,” ”hardworking,” ”violent” and “lazy,” described blacks, whites and Hispanics.
The same respondents were also administered a survey designed to measure implicit racism, in which a photo of a black, Hispanic or white male flashed on the screen before a neutral image of a Chinese character. The respondents were then asked to rate their feelings toward the Chinese character. Previous research has shown that people transfer their feelings about the photo onto the character, allowing researchers to measure racist feelings even if a respondent does not acknowledge them.
Results from those questions were analyzed with poll takers’ ages, partisan beliefs, views on Obama and Romney and other factors, which allowed researchers to predict the likelihood that people would vote for either Obama or Romney. Those models were then used to estimate the net impact of each factor on the candidates’ support.
All the surveys were conducted online. Other research has shown that poll takers are more likely to share unpopular attitudes when they are filling out a survey using a computer rather than speaking with an interviewer. Respondents were randomly selected from a nationally representative panel maintained by GfK Custom Research.
Overall results from each survey have a margin of sampling error of approximately plus or minus 4 percentage points. The most recent poll, measuring anti-black views, was conducted Aug. 30 to Sept. 11.
Andra Gillespie, an Emory University political scientist who studies race-neutrality among black politicians, contrasted the situation to that faced by the first black mayors elected in major U.S. cities, the closest parallel to Obama’s first-black situation. Those mayors, she said, typically won about 20 percent of the white vote in their first races, but when seeking reelection they enjoyed greater white support presumably because “the whites who stayed in the cities … became more comfortable with a black executive.”
“President Obama’s election clearly didn’t change those who appear to be sort of hard-wired folks with racial resentment,” she said.
Negative racial attitudes can manifest in policy, noted Alan Jenkins, an assistant solicitor general during the Clinton administration and now executive director of the Opportunity Agenda think tank.
“That has very real circumstances in the way people are treated by police, the way kids are treated by teachers, the way home seekers are treated by landlords and real estate agents,” Jenkins said.
Hakeem Jeffries, a New York state assemblyman and candidate for a congressional seat being vacated by a fellow black Democrat, called it troubling that more progress on racial attitudes had not been made. Jeffries has fought a New York City police program of “stop and frisk” that has affected mostly blacks and Latinos but which supporters contend is not racially focused.
“I do remain cautiously optimistic that the future of America bends toward the side of increased racial tolerance,” Jeffries said. “We’ve come a long way, but clearly these results demonstrate there’s a long way to go.”
___
AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.
